Flock-printing machine



Feb. 16 1926.

F. HINNEKENS FLOCK PRINTING MACHI NE Filed Feb. 19, 1925 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 WITNESS an s,

grenT i A TTO/M/EY Feb. 16 1926.

F. HINNEKENS FLOCK PRINTING MACHINE Filed Feb. 19, 1925 2 Sheets-Shoot INVENTUR, FlorenT HmneK ns,

Patented Feb. 16, 1926.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FLORENT HINNEKEN S, OI PATEBSON, NEW JERSEY.

. FLOCK-PRINTING MACHINE.

' Application filed February 19, 1925. Serial No. 10,216.

v Machines, of which the following is a specific-ation. y

This invention relates to machines for use in performing what is known as the flock-printing of fabrics, that is to say, the depositing on the fabric through holes in a stencil of a suitable adhesive substance, like paint, followed by dusting the fabric with or otherwise. applying thereto before said substance sets or hardens material in flocculent or other comminuted form, whereby dots or other figures are applied to the surface of the fabric without weaving them therein. Inone class of these machines the stencil is an endless band or belt as wide as the goods to be treated and it is formed of copper or some other suitable metal which will stand flexing without breaking, though necessarily formed very thin so that a blade which presses the stencil against the fabric and so forces the adhesive substance through the stencil holes may to best advantage accomplish its work and cause the dots of said substance to be left applied in regular or uniform shapes; the endless stencil is extended around two rollers spaced a suitable distance apart and the mentioned blade bears against one stretch thereof and presses it and the fabric against a revolving drum which tensions the stencil somewhat and for that purpose is best positioned nearer one roller than the other.

Frequently a stencil will present greater circumferential length at one margin than at the other; or if originally formed with both margins precisely of the same measurement it will in use become stretched more at one margin than the other. This disparity may be almost imperceptible but it nevertheless causes the stencil to work or skew laterally is very expensive. One object of the invention therefore is to construct the machine so that disparities in the circumferential lengths of the margins of a stencil may be compensated for. This I accomplish by providing for an adjustment of one roller to positions of different angularity with reference to a plane bisecting the bend formed in the stencil around said roller. For a reason which will appear I prefer that this adjustment, should be made to affect the roller which is the more remote from the drum. To obtain the adjustment adjusting means is preferably employed and in connection with this I utilize a pointer and indexed scale whereby ,once the disparity in any particular stencil is determined it can be noted on the scale and the reading thus obtained in some way identified with the stenoil (as by indicating it on the stencil) and thereafter utilized in connection with the scale to set the stencil each time it is used in the machine in the exact position to com pensate for the disparity.

In these machines the fabric is usually fed through as one continuous piece, although in fact it is a number of pieces stitched together at their ends transversely. On account of the fragile nature of the stencil it is not possible to permit any seam thus existing in the goods to pass between the blade and drum while they are maintaining the pressure. Hence in these machines it has been usual to employ means for withdraw ing the drum from the blade; but this means was slow-operating in character: if the machine was kept running while the drum was lowered to skip a seam an undue amount of goods passed without undergoing printing, and if the machine was stopped too much time was wasted in withdrawing the drum, starting the machine for causing the seam to pass the pressure point, stopping the machine while the drum was returned, and again starting the machine. Another object of the invention is therefore to construct the machine so that the withdrawal of the drum and its return to operative position may be effected substantially instantaneously.

In the drawing,

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a flock-printing machine embodying the invention;

Fig. 2 is a detail of the means for compensating for marginal discrepancies in the stencils;

the means for effecting withdrawal of the drum. I

In the frame 1 is journaled on a horizontal axis the mentioned drum 2, the shaft of which is indicated at 3. On the top of the frame, in pairs of bearing structures .4

' and 5, are journaled in horizontal spaced relation to each other the mentioned rollers 6 and 7 around which extends the endless metal stencil 8. As to the pair of bearing structures 4 only one (the near one) is shown, the other being identical thereto; as to the pair of bearing structures 5 a detailed description thereof will appear later. The position of the drum is such that itis appreciably nearer the roller 6 than the roller 7. At the delivery or left hand end of the frame is journaled a driveshaft 9 which may carry a pulley 10, adapted to receive a driving belt, and a pimon 11. This pinion meshes with a gear 12, journaled on a stub-shaft 13. The drum 2 has on its shaft 3, fixed to rotate therewith, a gear 2, and the left-hand roller 6 likewise has, fixed on its shaft a gear 6. Gears 2 and 6 mesh with the pinion 11 and gear 12 respectively. Therefore when pinion 11 is rotated the drum and the rotary system including the two rollers and stenoil are rotated together; and by proper proportioning the gearing 11, 12, 6 and 2 the drum and stencil will move at the same peripheral speeds. The means for applying the adhesive substance is shown as including a receptacle 14 supported on the bearing structure 4 in position to deliver the adhesive substance onto the lower stretch of the stencil, together with a blade 15 set at an incline and adapted to bear against said stretch of the stencil about in a perpendicular plane coincident with the axis of drum 2'so that the delivered adhesive substance will be forced through the stencil holes and deposited on the fabric. The fabric is shown at 16 as extending from a suitably journaled supply roll, 16 and as backed by a flexible-blanket or apron 17 which is delivered from the roll 17 and passes over the drum with the fabric.

One of the two bearing structures 5 comprises a plain pedestal 5 and cap 5 To afford the bearing for the trunnion 7 of the 5 which is forked. and so affords a vertical guide-slot 5 for a bearing block 5 in which is arranged a ball or other anti-friction bearing 5 for the trunnion 7 of the roller. The pedestal 5 has a cap 5 suitably secured thereto by cap screws. and provided with a vertical hole 5. The bearing block has a stem 5 rigidly secured to and projecting upwardly therefrom through the hole 5 and the upper threaded end of this stem carries a hand nut 53*. One of the members o 'and 5 may have a ointer 5 and the other a scale 5", the mar s of which may bear numerals from 0 to 7 etc., so that means for effecting a micrometer adjustment of the bearing block is thus afforded.

If a stencil works or skews laterally because of a difference in the circumferential measurement of its margins this fault may be readily compensated for by adjustment of the nut 5 so as to change the angularity of roller 7 with reference to a plane, as a horizontal plane in the present case, extending to said roller tangentially with respect to roller 6. When the necessary adjustment for any particular stencil has once been effected the extent thereof may be observed by reference to the pointer and scale and the reading may be preserved and in some way identified with that particular stencil (as by marking it thereon) so that the next time it is used in the machine the reading may be utilized as a guide for adjusting the machine again to suit that stencil. One important feature of this part of my invention is that the described adjustment affects the roller which is the more remote from the drum and also from blade 15 rather than the other roller, whereby undue distortion of and tendency to strain the stencil are avoided at the critical point where it passes between the drum and blade.

I show means for effecting the shifting of the drum away from and toward the stencil in connection with a screw-jack mechanism, because the latter orits equivalent is usually needed in these machines so as to vary the upward pressure of the drum by altering the position of the drum vertically; however, it will be understood that this mechanism is not indispensable. The jack means is shown as comprising a transverse worm 18 journaled in the frame and in mesh with two worm-wheels 19 also journaled in the frame and each forming a rotary nut on a downwardly depending threaded stem 20. The upper end of this stem is telescopically received in a socket 21 depending from a bearing block 22 movable in vertical guideway 23 in the frame side, said bearing block affording a bearing for the shaft 3 of the drum 2. The upper end of the stem 20 is forked and receives a roller 24, which is within the socket 21. The

socket is traversed transversely by the ful-r crum shaft 25 of a lever having a short arm 26, which is a camming arm andhas at its extremity a recess 26 and rests on the roller 24, and a long or operating arm 27. To the long arms of the two levers are pivotally connected racks 28 which project to the left in Fig. l and are supported on rollers 29 with their teeth in engagement with two pinions 30 on a rotar shaft 31 journaled in the frame and having a hand wheel 32 for turning it. (Only those parts 19 to 26 which are at one side of the machine are shown, those of the other side being duplicates thereof.) To each bearing block 22 is attached by a flexible connection 34 a counterweight 38, said connection extending over suitable pulleys or other guides as shown in Fig. 1.

The system including the drum, connections 34 and weights, which approximately counterbalance the drum, is thus one adapted to be moved quickly back and forth, so that the drum may be lowered and returned to operative relation to the printing means without stopping the advance of the fabric and so that only an inappreciable part thereof both sides of the seam fails to be printed, the means for effecting this movement and including the parts of which the hand-wheel 32 is the prime operating member being constructed so that it only requires a single turn of the hand-wheel to accomplish it. lVhen the drum is elevated it is held in this the normal position by the rollers 24 being engaged in the notches 26 of the short lever arms 26.

It is to be observed that in the withdrawing and return movements of the drum it is continued in gear and always returns with out reduction in its speed.

It will be understood that in certain of the appended claims where the expression supporting means is used the same is represented in the present example by the jack mechanism taken with the frame.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A printing machine including, in combination, an endless stencil, spaced rotary rollers around which the stencil is peripherally extended, and means to support said rollers, one roller being adjustable relatively to the other topositions of varying angularity with reference to a plane bisecting the bend formed in the stencil around the first roller.

2, A printing machine including, in combination, an endless stencil, spaced rotary rollers around which the stencil is peripherally extended, means to hold the sheet of material to be printed in contact with one face of the stencil, said means being arranged closer to one roller than the other, and means to support the holding means and said rollers, the other roller bein ad'ustable relatively to the first roller an with reference to a plane bisecting the bend formedin the stenci around said other roller.

3. A printing machine including, in combination, an endless stencil, s ced rotary rollers around which thestenci is peripherally extended, a device having transverse contact with the stencil between said rollers and adapted to force a printing substance deposited on the stencil through the opening: therein, said device being arranged closer to one roller than the other, and means to suppoit said device and rollers, the other roller being adjustable relatively to the first roller and with reference to a plane bisectin the bend formed in the stencil around sai other roller. I

4. A printing machine including, in combination, an endless stencil, spaced rotary rollers around which the stencil is peripherally extended, supporting means in which one of said rollers is journaled affording a fulcrum-bearing therefor, .a bearing device for saidv roller spaced from the fulcrumbearing transversely of the stencil and shiftable toward and from a plane bisecting the bend formed in the stencil around said roller, and means to adjust and hold said device in any of the positions to which it is thus shifted.

5. A printing machine including, in comination, an endless stencil, spaced rotary rollers around which the stencil is peripherally extended, supporting means in which one of said rollers is journaled affording a fulcrum-bearing therefor, a bearing device for said roller spaced from the fulcrumbearing transversely of the stencil and shiftable toward and from a plane bisecting the bend formed in the stencil around said roller, and screw means to adjust and hold said device in any of the positions to which it is thus shifted.

6. In a machine for printing sheet mate rial having thickened portions at intervals, the combination of supporting means, coacting means for advancing a sheet to be printed intervening between them and one of which is movable, and is also normally urged in one of the directions, toward and from the other. and a lever to control the movement of the movable one of said coacting means having interposed between the latter and the supporting means a short camming arm and 'also having a long operating arm.

7. In a maclnne for printing sheet mate- 'rial having thickened portions at intervals,

the combination of supporting means, coacting means for advancing a sheet to be printed intervening between them and one'of which is movable, and is also normally urged in one of the directions, toward and from the other, said supporting means and the movable one of the coacting means having telescoping portion a short camming arm andv also having a long opera-ting arm.

8. In a machine for printlng sheet material having thickened portions at intervals,

the combination of supporting means, rotary printing means, a'back-and-forth approximately balanced system including a gravitydepressed member movable with said system into and out of coacting relation to vthe printing means to compress between them the sheet to be printed, and means to effect quick back and forth movements of said system.

9. In a machine for printing sheet material havingv thickened portions at intervals, the combination of supporting means, rotary printing means, a back-and-forth approximately balanced system including a gravitydepressed member movable with said system into and out of coacting relation to the printing means to compress between them the sheet to be printed, and means to effect back and forth movements of said system including a hand-rotated operating member adapted to effect movement of the member into or out of such relation to the printing means during approximately one revolution of said operating member.

In testimony whereof I aflix my si nature.

FLORENT HINNEKENS. 

